Thought processes and conversations started under the tilted cap of Tropicana Field. Someday everyone will know the Rays play in St. Petersburg, Florida, not TAMPA, or the fictitious city of TAMPA BAY.

Quit Trying to Write the Rays Obit

Elise Amendola/AP

With a exact dozen games left for this band of Tampa Bay Rays in the 2010 season, some within the Rays Republic have begun calling franticly skyward to the Gods to help stop an apparent exodus of our communities confidence and belief in post season prosperity. The latest rolling in of dark clouds have quickly assembled above the Rays, and with its darkened cover comes the slight elimination of the sunlight that helps to provide a centrifuge of negative energy and misguided pockets of doubt at this moment.

Some within the Rays Republic have already sighted the Four Cow-nosed Rays of the Apocalypse furiously fluttering towards our Tampa Bay region, but as of now, this collective Rays posse are still circling out in the Gulf of Mexico just beyond the impending sunset on the horizon. That by the Four Cow-nosed Rays of the Apocalypse own immortal presence within their eyesight, this Rays team has to acknowledge and prepare for the carnage that could unfold in the near future.

The hot cauldron of water these Rays are currently emersed in will soon become a rapidly rolling boil, and this fragile Rays team might be scalded like crayfish tossed into a steel pot for consumption. Several signs of an impending Rays apocalypse have already shown their gory faces, and that we might as well give up now or forever be condemned to the purgatory of mediocrity that engulfed our teams from 1998-2007.

To fight this prophetic conclusion might be futile and cost this team their own souls forever. With signs of the impending doom already being unsealed, could this Rays team find the moral fortitude, the almighty gumption, and the divine light of wisdom and truth to rise above these ashes and regroup. Can their will and confidence be restored and thus provide them with a emotional and mental weaponry to defeat and conquer despite their current physical imperfections and mistakes in battle.

Even though a mighty warrior named Joba thrust his sword deep into the Rays collective heart this past evening, can this group of Rays revolutionaries still regain the beating heart of a champion and endure the immense pain they have already been subjected upon themselves and emerge from this darkness with a renewed vigor and vitality?

That this prior set of moments of weakness and strife can be used internally by each of these Rays combatants to bring an increasing urge to again fight back and provide a ferocious fire in their bellies for redemption to conquer this foe that is trying to condemn them to their own demise. Both other voices within the darkness are harking to their destruction with unfounded tales of woe surfacing from the almighty ESPN telling the masses that these Rays are slain and left dying at this point, and thus will not be able to rise to the mountain top of the American League East.

But alas, the prediction by this ESPN soothsayers has mysteriously forgotten that with a single thrust of the Rays victorious sword, with a single win upon the Bronx battlefield against these Yankees, the Rays would still control their own final path on this AL East journey. That if by chance, these two kingdoms of baseball majesty still remain tied atop the A L East summit at the end, the tattered and torn Rays would be crowned the champions, and not that lot from the borough of the Bronx.

Lost amongst the ruin and rubble of the last three games in which these Rays have floundered is still the seeds of triumph and not the planting of despair that would have these Rays wandering aimlessly about the cityscape. That by their own Rays arms and actions they will have to condemn themselves to their own pitfall of failure. The actions of another floundering kingdom in yonder Boston, who is simultaneously imploding amongst its own dismal fate, the Rays chance at playoff redemption should be secured soon.

With all the current strife and turmoil anointed on these Rays hurlers, their seasonal light still shines bright, and glorious growth can still happen within the next 12 games. That even amongst the battlefield with the increasing combative sorcery of their current enemy, these Rays still have a solid chance to stand tall and proud in the end. That by entrenching themselves in their fundamental baseball beliefs, these Rays know in their heart if hearts they can still perservere.

The Four Cow-nosed Rays of the Apocalypse may be on the immediate horizon, but they are not here for destruction or even dismantling of this army. They are there as a constant reminder to this Rays team that failure can be bestowed upon them with haste, but that ultimate glory and positive affirmation can also be just beyond their reach if they were to turn themselves 180 degree and seek it.

The apparent sighting of this foursome is not to be taken as a defeat, but as a reminder of how far this team and this franchise has swam in 13 seasons to partake and embrace a second possible American League East summit. Sometimes we have to have hints of the past pushed at us to remind us of just how far we have traveled.

The Rays can look at this scenario with the almighty Yankees in two ways before they take the field tonight.

They can look at it with a pessimistic set of eyes and see a 1 ½ game lead going into their last dozen games with a two game streak of frustration and disappointment streaming within their minds. Or these Rays can view this as a 3-2 Yankees advantage in the 7-game home-and-home series with Game 6 and 7 in the next two days.

To take the first scenario would be to embrace the defeatist aspect of what this series.

To envelope yourselves in the second set of circumstances will give heed to confidence and the ability to fight back and recharge the energies to take the next two games to this foe and come out with a 4-3 edge in this battle. To me personally, it is time to go out and net those Four Cow-nosed Rays of the Apocalypse and pop them back into the Rays tank where they belong and take the next two nights to the Yankees.

If The Tampa Bay region burrows deep within itself to the misguided beliefs and insane assumptions flowing from our Northern neighbors and ESPN, then we are truly in that pot of scalding water and will be consumed by the masses. But if you believe in the “Rays Way” and the collective heart and soul of this region still beats strong , along with that of our Rays squad, then stand up, yell loud and make sure the rest of this country know the Rays are still alive and well and ready to sting anyone in our way.

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2 Comments

I’m certainly not counting you guys out, that is for sure. The only reason I would “rather” face the Rays in the playoffs than the Yankees is because of the Twins’, ahem, past difficulties with the Bronx Bombers. However, your team speed and versatile weapons (like Carl Crawford) are never to be taken lightly. If your starting pitching holds up behind Price, you could easily go all the way.http://zkonedog.mlblogs.com/

Most people forget, the Rays swept the Rangers at home, and won the seasonalseries against the Twins. They even took two of three in new Target Field, which because of its space is suited perfectly for the Rays style of play.
This is not to write a negative on facing any of the three teams besides the Rays that will grace the AL side of the playoff brackets, but if the Rays play their game….They have to be favored before the Bullpen get a achance to blow the game wide open.

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